Martin Johnson: England still have room to improve

England manager Martin Johnson has vowed there was still more to come from his
side despite the emphatic nature of their 34-10 over France at Twickenham as
their Six Nations campaign belated exploded into action in stunning fashion.

The gloom of the last six weeks were blown away with a first-half performance that will linger long in the memory. Tries by Mark Cueto, Riki Flutey, Delon Armitage and Joe Worsely had England in front 29-0 by the interval, with the Twickenham crowd stunned as much as the French.

Flutey, on his finest day in an England shirt, added a second shortly after the restart and although England lost their way during the second half, with France managing tries by Dimitri Szarzewski and Julien Malzieu, it did little to take the gloss of a magnificent performance by Johnson's side, who for the first time in the championship did not have any players sent to the sin bin.

While defeats to Wales and Ireland had already ended England's Six Nations title hopes, the manner of the performance will have eased the mounting pressure on Johnson and his captain Steve Borthwick.

"There is a good feeling of satisfaction," said Johnson. "It is nice to be in a changing that has won and after guys have played well.

"When you lose you are going to get criticized and I understand that. Does the criticism go over the top? Yes, it does but that is the nature of it. We always knew we were a better side, particularly from the autumn.

"I am happy for the whole group and Steve Borthwick in particular. I have never played with a more conscientious player than him.

"But there is more to come from this team. The players will enjoy what they have done but we must back this performance up against Scotland next Saturday."

Johnson's main delight was his team's ability to finally transform their work in training into the match situation. "It just showed that when we executed what we wanted to do we could open them up and score tries," he added.

"The guys have confidence in what we are doing and to turn them into clinical tries was great. The coaching staff have put a lot of work in. There are still lots of improvements to make, but in the heat of the game there are always going to be mistakes and it's minimising them."